Beginning with the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, providing cost effective security measures at various high-profile installations increased in importance. Installations such as seaports, airports, chemical plants, nuclear reactors, military and other sensitive installations are vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, the state of the art systems for securing such installations can be very costly to install both in terms of money and in terms of time.
Some existing systems that can be used to secure such installations include the use of radar to detect intruders. Unfortunately, technicians require extensive training to be able to effectively use radar systems. Further, such systems are prone to false alarms that trigger personnel to investigate a potential incident. This reduces the effectiveness of a conventional radar-based surveillance system.
Commonly, other surveillance systems use video cameras to secure an area. These systems rely heavily on operators to view data presented on monitors. The larger the installation under surveillance, the more cameras and the more hence personnel are needed to operate the system effectively. A given operator can only be effective in viewing video feeds from a small number of video cameras. Further, the video cameras provide a large volume of data and thus this type of system requires an infrastructure with a large bandwidth to allow the operators to view the available data.
Therefore, a surveillance system is needed that enables securing an installation with reduced installation, maintenance and operational costs.